The Romance of It All

So this whole no interweb thing is completely unacceptable! It means that I have to compose blogs the “old fashioned” way, the same way that works of literature were composed in the glorious 90s, in Microsoft word, at home, before walking to the library in the rain to post them on my blog. It makes one think how we all survived before home interweb access. Those who think we haven’t passed into a new completely different age, think again.

Actually, our existence is not dissimilar to when Sam and I first moved in together, in a small and ridiculously cleap flat in Shadyside, with our friend Adrian in 2000 after we graduated from college. We didn’t have the interweb then at home and we had to scrounge for furniture and homewares. Groceries always seemed like a luxury and I am convinced that I lived off grilled cheese for a year. However, I always found a way to drink single malt scotch, something that in Scotland I can’t afford to do. Oh, the irony!

Moving over here is similar in that we’re in the “Shadyside” part of Glasgow and are scrounging together a proper home as cheaply as we can. I suppose it is romantic to be price shopping for frozen peas. Romantic is what I keep telling myself. “Isn’t it romantic that we have to ration coffee” or “isn’t it romantic to not have a bathroom fan” or “boy, it is so romantic drying ones boxers with an iron.” Life’s what you make of it.

Saturday we ventured to Ikea, the universal cheap good store, for people who are putting together their lives. Not that our life is put together by any means: Ikea doesn’t come with group therapy but it is a nice play to find some throw rugs. Before we came to Scotland I thought that we were just approaching the “real” furniture phase of our relationship. My academic ambitions have unfortunately made us put off real furniture for another half a decade - at least.

Now to get to Ikea, without a car, is like making it to Mordor if you’re a ring bearing Hobbit. It simply can’t be done without hardship. From our flat, Ikea is almost exactly five miles away. To get there, and this is where it gets to be ridiculous, you can either take a taxi for about fifteen pounds (which amounts to about nine-hundred US dollars at the present rate of exchange), or you can take the Subway followed by the Bus.

When we looked at this process on the map, we thought it might take about forty-five minutes. Boy were we wrong. It took us two freaking hours to get to Ikea, which of course means, it took us two hours to get home. We spent three times as long traveling to Ikea as we did in Ikea itself. We also got to experience a long Glaswegian bus ride full of hooligans and some rather rough looking fourteen-year-old girls. It was a cultural experience. Sam thought it was great – I thought I was going to get stabbed. This is why “we” work.

The good news from all of this is that Sam has made a modest home out of what was originally a rather sad looking flat. We even have groceries and the means to make food, which simply amazes me at my wife’s resourcefulness. Penny is happy with her daily walks to the Botanic Gardens: she even likes the weather.

Oh, and Penny got a rather nice little compliment from a lady in Kelvingrove Park. She said that Penny was “one of those well-bred northern Westies – not like the manky southern Westies you see around here.” This is the kind of compliment every parent hopes for their dog.

Tootles,

Ian

Ps. Please pardon if I spelled the word “manky” wrong – it may very well be “mankey” but I am simply not sure of the spellings of some Scottish slang.